October is a time for reflecting. The leaves dying, falling off the beautiful oak trees in the city. The way the crisp wind blows through the buildings as the sun sets and the street lights up. October is a time for restarting. 

---*---

Astra lies on her bathroom floor, staring into the bright white glare of her fluorescent lightbulbs. Her vision goes in and out of focus as the water from her open shower mists over her. She doesn’t move a muscle.  She turns her head to the right, staring right into the shower-head, watching as water drips down and onto her near-pristine floor. She sees the water mix into the dark red liquid flowing from her caramel colored arms.  She longs for the numbness in her arms to reach her entire body. She yearns for the lack of feeling, for an emptiness.
She yawns, lifts her head and sighs.  She steps into the shower and rinses off her arms. She applies hydrogen peroxide and watches as the white bubbles form around the gashes in her wrists. She takes a long shower--mainly sitting because she is woozy from blood loss--and thinks about the long 3 hours of her sitting and bleeding out.  She steps out of the shower and plugs in her phone, starting up her playlist, “Black” by Pearl Jam comes up first. Astra sighs and turns up her phone, she takes a large bandage from her first aid kit (she collects them for fun) and wraps her right arm. Wincing, she starts wrapping her left, blood staining the cloth. She washes her hands of the blood and turns to her clothes hanging on the door rack.  She stares at the tight pleather pants she had bought herself the week before.  They had begun to fade after the first wear and she decided never to buy pleather from that store again. She slides them over her hips and begins to button up the off white, nylon dress shirt she wore nearly every other day.  She takes a short look in the mirror, she could barely stand to look at herself right now.
What if it worked? What if I had successfully killed myself for once? She thinks to herself, she sighs and moves her thick hair into a loose bun, getting the frizz out of her face. Astra takes her phone out of the dock and pauses her music as she searches for her headphones. She walks into her room; a dark indigo painting of a raven greets her. She had painted the room the instant she moved in. Throughout her childhood she longed to be able to paint her room, but was never capable of doing so due to her parents only being able to rent their homes over the years. She searches through her bedside drawer, a junky handmade stand that holds many candles and some sticks of incense. Finding her headphones, she makes her way to her sparse closet and grabs her loaded canvas bag; containing her camera, sketchpad, laptop, many camera lenses and a small bag of assorted pencils and other art supplies. She begins to hum a random tune and turns off her closet light, she spots a stray pair of her boyfriend’s underwear and laughs quietly. Astra remembered how her boyfriend Joaquin had spent the night the previous week and thought it had been funny to surprise her by laying in the bed naked until she got home from work.
Astra put Joaquin’s underwear in her clothes bin and grabbed her bag, she plugged in her headphones and restarted her music. As she walks towards the stairs out of her apartment, her favorite song begins to play, “Bother” by Stone Sour.  She hasn’t heard this song since her Junior year in high school, the amount of emotions that surges through her is enough to make her cry. She wipes her eyes against the sleeve of her black cardigan and continues to descend the steps. Astra receives a text, from Joaquin, she taps on the messages icon and begins to read it.
Hey babe, good morning! I’ve got something planned for the two of us this evening, don’t worry about heading back home and changing your clothes or anything. I’m sure what you’re wearing is fine (is it the white shirt again? Lol I need to take you shopping). Meet me at the Starbucks on 8th street. 6pm okay? Love you!
Astra hesitates, should she respond or just let the message rest? She decides to leave it and races down to her bike. She unlocks the bike chain and makes her way through the city. She stops at the Starbucks Joaquin had mentioned and orders a small coffee, she barely makes such luxuries but decides to splurge a bit anyway.  She seats herself at one of the small tables and takes her laptop out of her bag. She plugs in her giraffe flash drive and waits for her files to load.  Astra feels someone staring at her and turns to her right, a small girl is looking over at her from her seat next to her mother, who doesn’t seem to be paying her any attention. Astra waves at the little girl and the girl waves back, smiling. The small girl points in Astra’s direction so she follows the direction of the finger. Too late, Astra realizes her sleeve fell down exposing the bandage on her left arm. She quickly pulls it down over her arm and turns back to face her computer, chancing a small glance in the girl’s direction. The small girl is now talking to her mother and pointing back at Astra. Her face grows hot, s***! I hope the mom doesn’t decide to talk to me, avoid eye contact, Astra, avoid eye contact. She busies herself by browsing through the pictures on her drive, she clicks on the file “NYU honors project” and goes through the scenic night pictures she had taken over the course of the summer.
She stops on one of her and Joaquin, deep in a kiss, and begins to tear up. She remembers exactly when she took that picture, it had been hard to capture but was still spontaneous. She and Joaquin had been hiking along the Inwood Park trail, he had planned a surprise birthday picnic in the woods. Joaquin knew so much about Astra it amazed her, he even knew things that she hadn’t even realized. He had packed all of her favorite foods and had even serenaded her with her favorite songs, even if he couldn’t sing them very well. They had sat on the edge of the forest and Astra, always being one to document everything, decided that the moment would’ve been great to capture. She had set her camera on a thirty second timer and placed it on a rock, running back to Joaquin, she sat in his lap and he decided to kiss her, intensely. Needless to say she lost her virginity that night to someone she loved and cared for deeply and wouldn’t have had it any other way.
A loud cough breaks her out of her reverie, she quickly turns to its source. The little girl’s mother is standing beside her, looking mildly concerned. Astra gives a weak smile, which is returned by the lady.
“Hi, sorry to bother, but is everything all right? My daughter noticed something that kinda surprised her.” The lady shifts her weight and glances back in her child’s direction.
Astra coughs, somewhat uncomfortable, she gives a curt nod “, sorry if I scared her. I had a small accident this morning, but everything’s fine. You have a beautiful daughter by the way.”
The lady smiles and gives a small ‘thank you’ and walks away. Astra is glad that the lady didn’t inquire for more, something like blood is usually of large concern, especially for mothers.  Astra decides she’s spent enough time sitting and decides to head back out into the city life. She throws away her empty coffee cup and puts her laptop back in her bag. She smiles at the little girl and her mother as she passes them on her way out. They smile brightly back and Astra feels the queasiness start to form in her stomach. She hates having to fake happiness, especially when she is feeling exactly the opposite of that. She unlocks her bike from the rack and takes off through Manhattan, making her way towards New York University, her second home for all things photography.
Ever since she was ten she wanted to go to NYU, she aimed to leave the hum-drum normalcy of what was the suburbs of Maryland. She had lived in Germantown for a large portion of her life. Although she traveled throughout the east coast, she was often stuck with nothing to do but paint or suffer from her self-loathing tendencies.  Once she reached thirteen she decided she could ‘escape’ through photography. Taking pictures seemed to open up windows for her, allowing her to see a different perspective of the boring city she lived in. Nighttime became exciting and she yearned to venture past the D.C area. Photography was her vice, it kept her away from self-harming and continuous depression. She could finally see beauty in her surroundings. She no longer went through life seeing everything as gray nothingness. It was photography that helped her realize her dreams and her purpose in life.

---

She arrives at the main doors and locks her bike up, she spots a girl with brightly colored purple hair looking around rather frantically. She walks up to Astra and pauses to catch her breath.
“Hey,” her accent is southern “, sorry I’ve been running. This is the place for photography majors right?”
Astra subtly laughs, “yeah,” she replies. “Are you new here? To the state I mean.”
The girl laughs, it’s really heavy despite her small frame “, easy to tell, huh?” She puts out her hand, her thin olive-toned hand is covered in tattoos and accessories. Astra takes her hand and shakes it, the girl’s demeanor is warm despite the cold air rushing through the streets.
“My name’s Astra, I’m a sophomore here, so I guess if you need any help, just ask me.” Astra smiles the first genuine smile of the day.
“Sweet! The name’s Alanis, after the singer. My mom was a big fan of hers. Crazy about her, really. Had posters and s*** everywhere.” She shakes her head, laughing hard at the memory of her mother. Her purple hair lit green in the light orange beams reaching their way over the city’s high rises.
Astra, looking at her watch—it was already noon—nods for Alanis to follow her inside the building. They both have the same two afternoon classes, although Alanis is a journalism major.  Alanis sat beside Astra in their first class: Composition of Photography. They gather in the medium size classroom, looking at the array of pictures projected before them on the wall. The professor who walks in is tall and thin in stature, her hair long and in dreadlocks with feathers and other material interwoven. She takes her seat in front of the class and begins her lecture.
“Good afternoon class,” she says in a thick New York accent “, how are all of your summer composition projects coming? I know some of you are new this year, but hopefully you guys checked the site for the Honors assignment because missing out on this kinda opportunity would be really s***ty.”
She and a couple other students laugh at her honesty, she shrugs and sweeps her long gray cardigan around her and starts again. “I’m Professor Olivia Quamby, but I’d prefer ‘Professor O’ or ‘Miss O’, just because it’s less formal and edgy.”
Everyone pulls out their laptops and plug in flash drives, Astra notices that Alanis doesn’t pull out anything high tech, but rather an eighties model Fujica camera. She laughs and shrugs “, I’m just more retro I guess, this is my first camera and I trust it the most to get the job done.”
Astra nods “, yeah I understand, I have one of those too, my grandma gave it to me when I was fourteen. Good times those cameras are.” Astra laughs, getting off of her stool, and motioning for Alanis to follow her. Astra leads her companion down the hallway covered with murals and artwork, she stops in front of a small wooden door about the size of a broom closet.
“Welcome to the dark room.” Astra tries to be as ominous and dramatic as she possibly can. Alanis smiles and opens the door, her hips jingling as her belt hit against the door frame.  Astra glances down at Alanis’s backside, her butt defined by the black skinny jeans she’s wearing. Her belt makes them more snug and they hug her curves perfectly. Astra snaps herself out her trance, she feels remorse over the fact that she is checking this girl out despite having a boyfriend. Alanis sets up the dark room, turning on the dark red light that prevents the camera’s film from being exposed and making the pictures turn out incorrectly. She grabs the film liquid and a small tray and pulls the film out of her camera.
Astra stands beside her watching the process, admiring the skill Alanis showed. She seemed to be five steps ahead of what she was doing, every action done expertly. Alanis clears her throat when she notices Astra staring.
“What? Is something wrong?” Alanis drawls, moving her purple—but now brown in the light—hair from her eyes.
Astra coughs and looks away s***! “No, sorry I kinda zoned out.” She could feel the blush rising through her skin, even in the dark she knew it was visible. 
Alanis just laughs and continues what she was doing. “Here, look,” she points at the photo paper sitting in the tray “, the picture is coming in now.”
Slowly but surely the image became bold. It was of Alanis, hair green and bold, clad in leather shorts and a ripped vintage Sex Pistols tee shirt. Her arms were adorned with large bangles, leather bracelets and what looked like friendship bracelets.  Astra enjoyed looking at this version of Alanis, different from how she looks now: long black cardigan over a green Dropkick Murphys tee, with black jeans and red Doc Martens. She had the same amount of bracelets, but the only thing that changed were the tattoos. Alanis during the summer time seemed more free and outgoing. Despite having just met her Astra felt as though she knew so much about her. Alanis begins to laugh, pointing at the image of her mother in the background. She was in a tree looking longingly at the sunset that stood out starkly in the whole picture, creating a beautiful glare along the left side of the shot.

Astra scrunches up her face in confusion “, why do you always pick on your mother like that?” She forces a laugh at the end of the question to keep things light, she doesn’t want to be rude if there was something going on between Alanis and her mom. Alanis looks surprised, as though no one asked her that question before, she looks down, seemingly contemplating her answer.
“I don’t know, she’s kinda crazy. The eighties were a weird time ya’ know?” She turns away from Astra and hangs her pictures along the rack. “My pops left when I was young, seven or eight. She raised me alone all my life, but I don’t think she could really handle it, see. She was always kinda…absent, I guess you could call it that.”
Alanis turns around from the rack and leans against the counter, her hair drifting over her face as she looks down. “Photography was my only escape in a way. I could’ve left once I reached sixteen, but I guess I couldn’t just leave my ma like that, ya’ know?”
Astra nods, she could slightly relate, her relationship with her parents wasn’t all that great either. The silence lasts no longer than two seconds before Alanis checks her phone. “Holy s*** time flies, it’s nearly two o’clock already. Class is almost over, want me to walk with you to the second course?”
Astra puts her hands in her pockets, still feeling awkward about having brought up the topic of Alanis’s broken family. Suddenly she doesn’t feel well enough to go to her second class, she tells Alanis this and she lets the topic go, obviously sensing Astra’s discomfort.  The two of them leave the dark room, Alanis bundling all of her photos with a large rubber band. Halfway down the hallway Alanis pulls Astra to a stop by her shoulder “, are you, by any chance, into girls?”
Astra looks surprised, startled by the forwardness of her question “, I’m bisexual,” she chokes out. Alanis lights up, moving closer to Astra, her breath shallow and sweet into Astra’s face.
“Good.” She pushes a firm kiss to Astra’s lips, smiling against the obvious dumbstruck expression Astra holds. Astra decides to deepen the kiss, allowing her lips to part and for Alanis’s tongue to find its way into her mouth. They part what seems like eons later, both out of breath and smiling.

---

It’s six o’clock and Astra is racing to the Starbucks Joaquin had texted her about. She makes it there at ten after and is slightly upset that she kept him waiting. She bursts into the café and scans the tables for her boyfriend. She finally spots him, in the back corner reading a book. His long dark hair billows into his face, he looks up to sweep it out of his eyes and sees Astra. He smiles and his tan skin seems luminescent. Astra makes her way over to Joaquin, he stands and pulls out her chair.
“Hey, babe. How was your day?” He kisses her lightly on the lips. He smiles as he takes his seat again.
Astra laughs “, you are just beaming today! My day was average, you?”
Joaquin shrugs “, better now that I’m with you.”
“You’ve always been a hopeless romantic”
“One of my many flaws,” he does a mocking bow “, so, I’ve got something planned. So, this Starbucks was not the special something I was telling you about, alright?” Both him and Astra laugh, she had kind of enjoyed just sitting in the cozy coffee bar. There were less people there than usual, meaning they were able to talk freely without getting odd glances by other patrons.
“Aw,” she whines “, but I like it here.” She drags out the last word, going for the spoiled kid-like complaining she does to make Joaquin give in to her requests.
“Nope, not gonna work Astra, we’re going somewhere really cool. And maybe after that we can do a little something else.” He winks and laughs while Astra rolls her eyes. He glances down at his watch “, Alright, we’ve got to get a move on before we miss it.”
He walks over to Astra and pulls out her chair, he bows as she gets up and she takes his hand, placing a kiss upon it. Joaquin leads his girlfriend out of the Starbucks, heading to his green “Turtle Mobile”.  They get in the car and immediately Joaquin plugs in his phone and starts his playlist. His favorite band 311 starts to play and he drums along to the intro with his fingers.
“Ugh,” Astra groans “, this is the only band you listen to! I need more variety.” She leans over and grabs his phone, scrolling through his songs and selects another favorite of theirs. The Foo Fighters. As the song “The Pretender” starts to play, Joaquin gets a look on his face that is of total approval.
“Yes! Ah, I love this song, dude, I heard this live and nearly exploded.”
“I had a feeling,” Astra laughs “, I saw Dave Grohl live once, but it wasn’t the whole band, so it wasn’t the same effect.” She shrugs and turns to look out the passenger side window. The city lights began to glisten as a light mist falls. As the rain starts to pick up, Joaquin looks over at Astra, who has a worried expression on her face.
“Don’t worry, the rain won’t affect us. I’ve even got umbrellas just in case.” He laughs as he turns into the parking lot of a large glass building. Shaped like a cube, a large sphere sits inside it. Lights illuminate the sphere, creating imagery that looks like nebulas, stars and other space forms.
“Here we are, we’ve got five minutes before the show starts.” He looks into Astra’s eyes “, surprise!” He smiles really wide and gets out of the car. “I know you’ve been looking forward to going to a planetarium sometime in your life, so I figured, why not tonight? It’s a presentation on dark matter and black holes and stuff like that, and you really love astronomy, so--“
Astra cuts him off with a deep passionate kiss. When they break apart he looks surprised, and begins to laugh quietly.
“Thank you, so very much!” Astra squeals with delight. “Who’s narrating it?”
He shrugs, looking down and smiling “, none other than your favorite, Neil DeGrasse Tyson.”
Astra practically screams. As they walk inside Hayden Planetarium, she wraps her arms around her boyfriend’s neck “, I love you so much, you know?”
“I have a feeling that I do know,” He looks down at Astra “, can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“Be honest with me. Do you feel as though I’m a person you’d always be friends with even if our relationship doesn’t work out?”
Astra frowns, where did this question come from? “Of course! Why wouldn’t I be? You’re a wonderful person.”
She sees Joaquin visibly relax, he sighs and kisses Astra. “Thank you Astra, for being with me.”
“Of course, babe”
They walk into the darkened sphere and take seats in the center of the theatre. The lights begin to dim and the show starts. Holding hands, Astra lays her head on Joaquin’s arm, relaxing into her chair and enjoying the serene views of a galaxy outside their own.